Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a method for controlling the same, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
An information processing apparatus such as an image forming apparatus has hitherto been provided with an authentication function for controlling permission/inhibition of use for a user. One of such methods uses a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag. According to this method, in the image forming apparatus that includes a tag reader/writer, information is read from an integrated circuit (IC) card which a RFID tag has been embedded in and which has come close, and then authentication is performed based on the information.
However, this method needs power for operating the reader/writer. As a result, when a device is set in a power saving state, the authentication function does not operate unless power is supplied to the reader/writer. On the other hand, when power is supplied to the reader/writer, the device is not set in a sufficient power saving state.
In recent years, a technology referred to as Near Field Communication (NFC) that is one of near field wireless communication units (or noncontact communication units) compatible to the RFID has started to be mounted in a mobile terminal such as a smartphone or a tablet personal computer (PC).
Three operation modes are defined according to NFC specifications. A first is a reader/writer mode that enables an operation equivalent to that of the reader/writer. A second is a card emulation mode that enables an operation equivalent to that of the RFID tag. A third is a peer-to-peer mode that enables transmission/reception of various data via the NFC. In the NFC, an operation can be performed while switching these modes.
There has been offered a technology for compensating for an issue when the reader/writer is used in the power saving mode of the device by switching the operation modes in the NFC as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-60046 (JP 2011-60046). According to the technology discussed in JP 2011-60046, a noncontact communication device operates in the reader/writer mode when power has been supplied from an apparatus, and in the card emulation mode when power has been supplied from a battery. During the operation in the card emulation mode, the noncontact communication device transmits information regarding the apparatus to a communication partner. This enables transmission of information of some type even in the power saving state.
However, according to the aforementioned conventional technology, it is only the information of the device that is transmitted to the communication partner. When a user logs in to use the apparatus in the power saving state, the user must perform a recovery operation in order to make the apparatus recover from the power saving state. To perform authentication after the recovery, the user must hold up the mobile terminal again to the device. Thus, the technology lacks convenience. In the mobile terminal, which of the card emulation mode and the reader/writer mode should be used to carry out communication is not uniquely determined. As a result, an operation is cumbersome for the user, and user's operation time may increase.